Tuesday, August 15, 2017

The idea that Fidel Castro was
behind the assassination of President Kennedy isn't new, in fact it was the
first conspiracy theory that was officially and universally debunked, except in
the minds of those who still promote it.

Shortly after his arrest and Fair
Play for Cuba Committee activities became known, Philadelphia Inquirer reporter
Joe Goulden asked Assistant Dallas D.A. Bill Alexander if he was going to
charge Oswald with "furthering a communist conspiracy"

Goulden attended the US Army
counter-intelligence school before becoming a journalist and media asset of
David Atlee Phillips, whose personal papers Goulden now controls.

That Oswald was going to be charged with “furthering
a Communist conspiracy” fueled a rumor that when it got back to LBJ, holed up
in his VP office in the Executive Office Building next to the White House, he
had his top aid Cliff Carter call the Texas Attorney General to stop it, trying
to put an end to the communist conspiracy talk.

But it continued, and continues to
this day, making it a newsworthy issue that isn't ancient history.

That night Clare Booth Luce got a
phone call from Julio Fernandez, the anti-Castro Cuban JMWAVE commando team
leader who said he had a tape recording and other evidence on Oswald.

Within 24 hours the DRE put out a
publication blaming the assassination on Castro, and in Mexico, a Nicaraguan
(Somoza) intelligence agent Alvarado - said he saw Oswald in the Cuban embassy
take money from a red haired black Cuban.

Although promoted by CIA officer
David Atlee Phillips, Alvarado gave a date when Oswald wasn't there, and failed
a lie detector test. "Nice try though," wrote Phillips, who also
tried to get Tony Veciana's cousin in the Cuban intelligence to say Oswald
worked for them.

A few days after the assassination
the FBI visited Frank Sturgis in Florida and he said he knew of a meeting
between Oswald and Castro, and when he later told the story, Jack Ruby was
there too.

There were so many bogus Castro did
it stories being floated about Donald Freed and Jeff Cohen wrote about them in an article
"Fidel on the Grassy Knoll" in Liberation magazine.

Mathew Smith wrote a book "The
Second Plot" - the plot to blame Castro for the murder of JFK.

And I have been compiling a list of
them, and the unique thing about them is that most if not all of them stem from US CIA intelligence sources.

That Castro was behind the
assassination of the president was a psychological warfare black propaganda
operation built into the original plan - a plan that was originally devised to
kill Castro and blame the Soviets. When the plan to kill Castro was
"disapproved" by higher authority, it was redirected to the higher
authority.

Almost every allegation that Castro
was behind what happened at Dealey Plaza was disproved - shown to be false, new
allegations popped up all the time.

In 1980, a few weeks before
President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley with a gun bought a few blocks from
Dealey Plaza, the Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) put out a report they
acknowledged was leaked by the NSA - National Security Agency. It said their
radio monitors picked up a broadcast from Cuba that said Castro was going to
kill Reagan just as he killed JFK.

More recently, after meeting with
CIA officials Guss Russo and German filmmaker - H - have tried to make a case
against Castro, using dubious sources, while former CIA officers Brian Latell
and Bob Baer have tried to pin the Dealey Plaza tail on Castro, without
success.

Latell's case rests mainly on a
Cuban defector who claims to have worked at the Cuban-Soviet listening post
they set up on the north shore that was similar to the one the NSA and
Australians have in the Outback desert and the subject of some of the first
previously secret records released under the JFK Act.

This defector claims that on
November 22, 1963 Castro himself ordered them to focus their electronic ears on
Texas to pick up the Air Force One Radio communications, and that is proof of
Castro's foreknowledge of the assassination! Now that's bad logic. That's
evidence of Castro's foreknowledge of Kennedy's itinerary - something anyone
who read the papers or listened to the news knew. And if they did pick up the
AF1 radio transmissions and recorded them, we'd like to have a copy because our
government seems to have lost ours.

After Latell came Phil Shenon, the
only Castro-did-it proponent who doesn't appear to have intelligence ties. The
former New York Times reporter, in his book "A Cruel and Shocking Act,"
says that his interest in the case of the murdered president stemmed from a
former Warren Commission attorney who complained the Commission wasn't told
about the CIA plots to kill Castro and other pertinent events that had a
bearing on the assassination.

While others have claimed this
anonymous WC attorney with doubts was the late Arlen Spector, I don't think so.
If it was, now that he's dead, Shenon would admit it was him, so I think
Shenon's instigator was Sam Stern, who raised the same doubts with the HSCA.

Shenon's book focuses on some of the
Warren Commission's inadequacies, though he's clear about his belief that they
got the part right about Oswald being the lone gunman, he mainly takes up the
chase to get Castro.

Shenon focuses primarily on a Twist
Party allegedly hosted by Sylvia Duran and included such guests as Oswald, two
American Gringos, and Cuban embassy officials, who encouraged Oswald to kill
Kennedy.

Then we got a piece of Bob Baer,
whose six part - six hour long TV "documentary," claimed Oswald - the
sole assassin of the president, used intelligence tradecraft - which he most
certainly did.

That's a big step in the right
direction, but then instead of reviewing all the "spies" Oswald came
in contact with from his days in CAP and USMC, Moscow, Minsk, Dallas, New
Orleans and Mexico City, he only wants to know about the Cubans and Russians,
which certainly limits the investigation.

No matter, although six shows were
completed and in the can, after two shows someone pulled the plug and it was
removed from the History Channel USA, although it continued to air in Canada,
where I am told, it played out as expected - Castro did it.

Someday we will find out who had the
power to kill a very expensive and popular TV series - and why they did it.
Their "limited fallout" hit them in the head.

Now with the sudden and in some
quarters unexpected release of the previously with held government files we
have Phil Shenon back on the story - asking the Donald to release the remaining
records on the assassination in the Washington Post, this time with University
of Virginia academic Larry Sabato, author of “The Kennedy Half-Century.”

Since I think Sabato was just
brought along for the ride to give Shenon some added heavy weight status, I
will for the moment discount Sabato's contribution until he responds to Dr.
Cyril Wecht's request for the sources of their claim that 21st century
forensics support the contention Oswald alone killed JFK.

In the meantime Shenon alone
appeared on NPR's "Fresh Air," with reporter Dave Davies, and gave a
good synopsis on the background of the newly released records, affirmed
Oswald's status as the lone gunman and branded Jack Ruby as a crazy misfit and
not part of any conspiracy.

Oswald however, was inspired by
Castro, "enraged" by an article in the newspaper of an interview with
Castro about assassination plots, and encouraged to kill Kennedy by Cuban
embassy personnel at a Twist Party hosted by Sylvia Duran, the Cuban embassy
receptionist who Oswald dealt with in trying to get a visa to Cuba.

Most reasonable people knowledgeable
about this subject - Peter Dale Scott, John Newman and Bill Simpich to name
three - stand corrected when they make a mistake and change what's incorrect
and sometimes their views on things.

But Shenon harps on, repeating the
same old non-sense, parroting the original cover-story built into the Dealey
Plaza Operational plan that Fidel Castro was behind the assassination.

That is what they call an
"active measure" a current psych-war black propaganda operation that
makes the Kennedy assassination news and relevant today as it was when it
happened.

Now I don't expect a respected
former New York Times reporter with a book on the subject - "A Cruel and
Horrible Act" to read my JFKCountercoup.blogspot.com review of his book -
"A Cruel and Horrible Twist," but if he had he would know more
than what's in his book.

Shenon asserts - and continues to
assert even when shown to be wrong - that Oswald was the lone assassin of the
President and was encouraged to do the horrible act by Castro Cuban Communists
in Mexico City.

This event was supposed to have
occurred at a "Twist Party" hosted by Sylvia Duran, who worked at the
Cuban embassy and did indeed interact with Oswald at the embassy.

Shenon wrote a whole book around
this party - and asserts that among those at the party - besides Duran, the
Cubans and Oswald were two other Americans - Gringo strangers who stood out
from the crowd and who were seen the next morning on the street with Oswald,
implying they were together on more than the Twist Party occasion.

Shenon keeps repeating that these
two Gringos were never identified, but if he read my review of his book or the
records released under the JFK Act he would know that these two fellow
Americans were identified by the CIA and named in documents because they were
recorded on tape talking to Duran on the telephone seeking visas to Cuba - the
same reason Oswald talked to Duran.

One of the two Americans seen with
Oswald at the Twist Party and again the next day was said to be a film actor,
and that narrowed it down to Richard Beymer - then a star in West Side Story
and The Longest Day.

While Shenon and all of his
resources and contacts couldn't identify him, the CIA did and I had no trouble
locating Richard Beymer alive and well in the mid-west, and talked with him on
the phone.

Beymer acknowledged going to Mexico
for a few weeks in the fall of 1963, as a special guest at a film festival and
while there, trying to get to Cuba. And he took a friend with him.

Beymer gave me the name of his
traveling companion, who owned a popular bar in New York City, but is now a
Catholic priest.

Beymer was surprised he is named in
CIA records related to the assassination, but acknowledged contacting the Cuban
embassy about getting a visa to Cuba. That was a popular if difficult thing to
do at the time.

As for the "Twist Party" -
Beymer doesn't remember it, but "that would be something we would have
done" being two footloose single guys below the border.

No, he doesn't remember meeting
Oswald either, something he believes he would have given Oswald's notoriety
after the assassination.

I also located Beymer's pal - Father
Brad, in upstate New York where he is a parish priest.

He said it was a pretty radical move
from owning a bar in the city to being a priest, and could write a book,
especially about the bands and celebrities who played at and patronized his
joint.

Father Joe recalled the trip to
Mexico with Beymer, and trying to get to Cuba, but drew a blank on the Twist
Party and doesn't recall meeting Oswald.

In fact, he said, they were there on
the day of the assassination, recalling how they learned about it when they got
off an elevator in a lobby of a hotel.

And since they were only in Mexico
for a few weeks - and were there on November 22, they weren't there when Oswald
was supposed to be in late September.

So if they were at the Twist Party -
as the other participants say they were - it wasn't with Oswald.

But even after all of the
Castro-done-it leads are run down like this, and go no where, Shenon continues
to harp on the Castro angle, as does Bob Baer, Gus Russo and Brian Latelle,
promoting the original cover story that just doesn't hold water because it has
too many holes in it.

Now the accused assassin did attend
a party in Dallas in February 1963 where he was encouraged to engage in a
political assassination, but Shenon doesn't want to go there, so few people
know about it.

And so the "still unfolding"
story of the assassination of President Kennedy continues, and the fake
Cuban-Castro-Commie Cover-story gets propagated on NPR, but those who are
actually reading the newly released records and can really clear the air of the
smoke and mirrors propaganda, can't get air time.

Shenon's insistence on focusing on
Oswald's associations with Cuban and Russian spies rather than including all of
the spies Oswald knew, belies his true agenda.

If you are a real investigative
journalist seeking the truth then you must include Oswald's associations with
his brothers, both military men, David Ferrie, George deMornschilt, George
Bouhe, Jean deMeniel, Sam Balen, Volkmar Schmidt, Ruth and Michael Paine and
others who had more meaningful interactions with Oswald than the Cubans and
Russians.

For a moment put aside the bogus
Mexico City Twist Party where no one encouraged Oswald to kill JFK, and
focus for a moment on the truly significant February 1963 house party hosted by
Volkmar Schmidt for the purpose of introducing the Oswalds and Paines. That's
where Oswald was encouraged to commit a political assassination - that of
General Walker, who he was later accused of attempting to kill.

So there was a party where Oswald
was encouraged to commit political assassination, but it wasn’t the Twist Party
in Mexico City, but a house party in Dallas where the Oswalds met the Paines,
and Volkmar Schmidt encouraged Oswald to kill General Walker, which would make
him “A Hunter of Fascists,” as was written on the photo of Oswald with the
rifle found among the effects of George deMohrenschildts.

But since that party doesn’t lead to
the Castro Cuban Commies and cover-story, a dead end alley, Shenon, nor Baer,
nor Latell, nor any of those who propagate the discredited Castro did- it theory
will go there, because it leads closer to the real truth of who killed JFK and
how they did it.

Friday, August 11, 2017

Casrto and Oswald, Veciana, Philips and AMLASH
September 7, 1963 A Harmonic Convergence

By William Kelly

Phillip Shenon, as Jefferson Morley contends, may be a real investigative reporter with an open mind and willing to follow every lead wherever it goes, able to accept new evidence and facts and adjust his opinion and theories if the information warrants it.

Morley says Shenon is not a certified disinformation agent or intelligence asset propagating a demonstrably false story that Castro Cuban Commies were behind the assassination of the President like Carlos Bringuier, Guss Russo, Brian Latell and Bob Baer - all with tight CIA connections and all parroting the same sordid story even after they've been proven wrong.

That Castro Cuban Commiess were behind the Dealey Plaza covert action was a black propaganda psychological warfare operation built into the plan that was originally designed to kill Castro but redirected to JFK in Dallas. And it is one aspect of the plan that failed, as it was and continues to be rejected by all objective observers and only actively promoted by those with direct CIA associations - Bringuier, Russo, Latell and Baer. It's failure gives us insight into the operation, just as Watergate did.

Which brings us back to Shenon - is he a real independent and free thinking investigative journalist pursuing the truth or is he an adherent and proponent of the first conspiracy theory that has been proven wrong?

In his Politico article (w/ Sabato) Shenon offers three primary documents as evidence of Castro's complicity, or Oswald being encouraged or supported by Castro Cuban Communists - 1) an official CIA historical account of director John McCone and the assassination; 2) a letter from JE Hoover, not seen by the Warren Commission, calling attention to Castro's September 7 interview with Castro threatening JFK, and 3) a CIA report on these activities prepared at the request of David Belin and the Rockefeller Commission in the 1970s.

While Dan Hardway deals effectively with Shenon's falty analysis of the official McCone history in his review - [ See: Thank You Phil Shenon. ], I will give further analysis of the September 7 Castro interview and why Shenon's spin is incorrect.

Shenon, and Hoover and Belin and the CIA report all discuss the September 9 (Daniel Harker) AP report as Castro threatening the President - taking it out of the context it is set, a context that gives meaning and sense to it.

The Monday September 9 article that Shenon says so enraged Oswald to kill JFK was on page 7 of The New Orleans Times Picayune paper and is headlined "Castro Blasts Raids on Cuba." It refers directly to the CIA JMWAVE support of such raids, including industrial sabatoge and the infiltration of commandos with high powered rifles, some of whom were captured by Castro forces and confessed to CIA support and training. Similar articles were published in the two Communist papers Oswald subscribed to including the issues he holds in the "Hunter of Fascists" backyard photos.

The CIA JMWAVE maritime fleet included a few large mother ships like the Leita and the Rex, and small boat commando teams including one led by Julio Fernandez and trained by Army Ranger Brad Ayers, and a sniper team trained at Point Mary off Key Largo by Army Ranger Ed Roderick that was supported by Colonel Rosselli - John Rosselli - whose case officer was William Harvey.

Harvey's official biographer says that when Harvey was replaced on the Cuban project by Desmond Fitzgerald, some of the covert ops started by Harvey, continued unknown to Fitzgerald.

Rosselli later said his team was captured when it was infiltrated and paraded on Cuban TV, and Rosselli said they were tortured by Castro and turned and sent back to kill JFK.

There were some National Security Council Special Group approved missions as well as some unapproved Alpha 66 missions that attacked Cuban industrial targets and deposited infiltration teams. In his book Red Friday Carlos Bringuier lists the names of some of the anti-Castro Cuban commandos who were captured by Castro, some with high powered rifles that Rolando Martinez, a JMWAVE boat captain, said "were not to be used for hunting rabbits."

But it wasn't just the maritime raiders that so upset Castro to say that if the "US leaders supports those who attack Cuban leaders, they themselves are not safe," it was Rolando Cubella (AMLASH).

While the AP article was published on Monday, September 9, the interview took place at the Brazilian embassy on Saturday night September 7.

That just happens to be the day Alpha 66 founder Antonio Veciana met with David Atlee Phillips and Lee Harvey Oswald at the Southland Center in Dallas, as well as the day Manuel Rodriguez arrived in Dallas to set up a branch of Alpha 66 and leased the safe house on Harlandale Avenue in Oak Cliff.

Most significantly Saturday September 7 is the day Cubella met his CIA case officer IN BRAZIL where they discussed organizing a coup and assassinating Castro.

Given the expressed belief in some CIA circles that Cubella was a double agent, it is supported by Castro's unexpected selection of the Brazilian embassy to give his speech and interview threatening Kennedy, all relevant facts that give the Castro interview meaning and sense, but all ignored by Shenon, who wants the article used as a false motive to "enrage" Oswald to kill JFK in support of Castro.

Of course the CIA was well aware of all these relevant facts but kept them out of their lengthy report in response to David Belen's request, but as the files released under the JFK Act tell us, and we ourselves know, so should Shenon.

Will Shenon follow up on the leads he provides that go directly to the JMWAVE maritime operations, Alpha 66 and AMLASH?

Or will Shenon now that the deranged lone nut story is determined to be untenable, follow the certified disinformation agents - and fall back to the original preconceived but false cover-story - that Castro Cuban Commies were behind the assassination?

Thursday, August 10, 2017

This show wasn't as bad as I expected. While "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross was getting ready for the Tonight Show, Dave Davies the reporter who questioned Shenon was surprisingly knowledgeable about the subject and Shenon is fine tuning his pitch.

There will be a free transcript of this program that runs over a half hour, and it will be rebroadcast at 7 pm EST, but I will sumerize some key elements.

It's apparent that Shenon is using the recently released batch of records to promote his book and theory - that Oswald killed JFK to impress Castro, and that while in Mexico City Oswald met with Cuban and Russian spies and announced his "plan" to kill the president.

And while he is described as an "investigative journalist" and claims to have an open mind, he isn't interested in any evidence except what supports that theory.

Actually Shenon doesn't start to get it wrong until quite deep in the program.

For Shenon, he says it all started in Hollywood with Oliver Stone's movie - JFK, that reshaped our thinking about the assassination and led to the JFK Act, that leaves - the irony of ironies, the President with the power to withhold the assassination records. They mention the Ted Cruz campaign incident and refer to "The Conspiracy Theorists in Chief.

Is there an index for the new records? No but an army of researchers are going through them.

The most interesting records to Shenon are the Mexico City records - "the mysterious chapter involving six days when we know he met with Cuban spies, Russian spies."

The official story that Oswald was a delusional misfit Lone Wolf is wrong.

From among the records released under the JFK Act include one from JE Hover that Warren Commission lawyers say they never saw - that speculates if Oswald was inspired by an AP article he must have read in New Orleans that quoted Castro saying he was aware of CIA maritime raids and plots to kill him and that US leaders are not safe.

This is an important document but not new, been a public record for years and should be carefully analyzed but Shenon uses it to hammer home the idea Oswald was "enraged" by the article and his love for Castro motivated Oswald to kill JFK all by himself, though he could have had encouragement, assistance and support from Cuban and Russian spies.

The evidence of this comes from the Twist Party hosted by Sylvia Duran - a surprisably easy to find Mexican national whose friends and family and government records dispute her denial about meeting Oswald outside the embassy and hosting Oswald at the Twist Party and his meeting with Cuban or Russian spies.

That's not how Bob Baer found Duran - who wouldn't have anything to do with him.

To support his contentions Shenon also uses June Cobb - a brace American spy who recently died in New York before he could interview her.

The FBI destroyed evidence and the CIA kept info from the Warren Commission to hide their advance knowledge of Oswald and his intentions.

Shenon quoted FBI spy posing as a communist reporting Castro's acknowledgement that Oswald told the Cubans of his "plan" to kill JFK, and cites Castro himself as the source of this story - but it's not - the FBI's fake Commie is the source, just as almost EVERY allegation that Castro was behind the assassination can be traced to an intelligence source.

Shenon says that former FBI director Clarence Kelly made the assassination a Research hobby and concluded the FBI covered up the true facts and could have prevented the assassination if they acted on the information in their own files.

Shenon falsely claimes new forensic techniques support the Single Bullet Theory and that Oswald was the only shooter - but we can't rule out the Cubans or Russians knew about his plans or encouraged or supported him.

But Jack Ruby a very troubled misfit, a mentally ill, delusional loser and "no conspiracy involving Ruby has emerged."

On the other hand RFK had a public and private view of the assassination, accepting the Warren Commission conclusions publicly but privately troubled that his brother's murder was "blowback" from what he knew of the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro.

No he is not going to wade through the newly released records, many of which are illegible, irrelevant and coded with pseudonames so you can't make sense of them.

He's going to wait for the Army of researchers to go through them - "the logistics of this is a nightmare," especially for the NARA - who will be rolling out batches of thousands of records at a time that will take months and years to go through.

What about the serious researchers? You must know each other? Communicate?

Well yes, but they don't like it if I don't endorse their particular conspiracy theory - though he tries to keep an open mind, and if there's anything in there they will find it.

Since these are the same angles being espoused and promoted by Gus Russo, Brian Latell and Bob Baer, I suppose this is the current agreed upon fall back position now that the Lone Nut-Lone Wolf story is totally rejected.

I will post links to the transcript and audio download of this show ASAP.

They are picking up where Gus Russo, Brian Latell and Bob Baer left off and are stuck parroting the same old, sorry story that is just not true. Phil Shenon is a
former New York Times reporter who says he is not interested in any other
aspect of the assassination of President Kennedy other than that which
indicates Castro was behind the dirty deed. In his book A Cruel and Shocking Act – he tries to make the claim that Oswald met Cuban embassy officials
at a private Twist Party where they encouraged him to kill JFK. There was a
party at which Oswald was encouraged to kill General Walker, but Shenon isn’t
interested in that. See my reviews:

Sabato is associated with the
University of Virginia Center for Politics, and together they represent a Punch and Judy show that we will have to get used to, and will have to respond and correct each of their articles, especially as they try to promote the original cover story - the false black propaganda and disinformation campaign to promote the idea that Castro was
behind the assassination of JFK.

After the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy in November 1963, the CIA appeared eager, even desperate, to
embrace the version of events being offered by the FBI, the Secret Service and
other parts of the government. The official story: that a delusional misfit and
self-proclaimed Marxist named Lee Harvey Oswald killed the president in Dallas
with his $21 mail-order rifle and there was no evidence of a conspiracy,
foreign or domestic. Certainly, the CIA’s leaders told the Warren Commission,
the independent panel that investigated the murder, there was no evidence of a
conspiracy that the spy agency could have foiled.

KELLY NOTE: These files contain much new information, especially about CIA
operations but not only that they began to worry – they knew what we are just
learning to know now.

Specifically, key CIA officials were
concerned by the mid-1970s that the agency, the FBI, the Secret Service and the
White House commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren had never followed
up on important clues about Oswald’s contact with foreign agents, including
diplomats and spies for the Communist governments of Cuba and the Soviet Union,
who might have been aware of his plans to kill Kennedy and even encouraged the
plot. (There is no credible evidence cited in the documents released so far
that Cuban leader Fidel Castro or other foreign leaders had any personal role
in ordering Kennedy’s murder.)

NOTE: The Warren Commission and
Justice Department never followed up on important clues about Oswald’s contacts
with many people – not just the “foreign agents” Shenon and Sabato want us to
follow. And the almost but not credible evidence that Cuban leader Fidel Castro
had a personal role in ordering Kennedy’s murder was a psychological warfare
twist made a part of the original CIA plan to kill Castro and Kennedy. That
part of the plan failed, and it gives us clear insight into the plot that led
to JFK’s death.

The CIA documents also offer
tantalizing speculation about the chain of events in late 1963 that explained
Oswald’s motives for killing Kennedy, which have previously never been
established with certainty —

NOTE: First off, Oswald didn’t kill
anybody, and for Shenon and Sabato to say that clearly indicates that they are
not familiar with the details of the crime that show that Oswald was set up for
the crime and was what he said he was – a Patsy. What’s the motive of the
Patsy? He was a COP – a covert operator and expendable agent who was murdered
in police custody, and a Pawn in a much bigger game.

-how
he may have become enraged after reading a detailed article in his hometown
newspaper in New Orleans in September suggesting that his hero Castro had been
targeted for assassination by the Kennedy administration.

NOTE: This
article was published in New Orleans and all over the world, and Oswald would
certainly have read it but concluding that he became “enraged” over it demeans
his true cool, calm and collected attitude, even after his arrest.

-According
to that theory, Oswald, who had rifle training in the Marine Corps, then set
out to seek vengeance on Castro’s behalf—to kill Kennedy before the American
president managed to kill the Cuban leader.

NOTE: That theory has been proven
false, JFK never approved any plan to kill Castro and goes against the grain of
the real operational conspiracy theory that is now taking hold among serious
researchers that the Dealey Plaza Operation – and it was a covert intelligence
operation regardless of Oswald’s role as sniper or Patsy, a CIA plan that
originally targeted Castro but was redirected to JFK in Dallas.

If that proved true, it would have
raised a terrible question for the CIA: Was it possible that JFK’s
assassination was, directly or indirectly, blowback for the spy agency’s plots
to kill Castro?

NOTE: The answer is YES, it was
directly a blowback from the CIA’s plans – not plots to kill Castro.

It would eventually be acknowledged
the CIA had, in fact, repeatedly tried to assassinate Castro, sometimes in
collusion with the Mafia, throughout Kennedy’s presidency. The CIA’s arsenal of
weapons against Castro included a fungus-infected scuba suit, a poison-filled
hypodermic needle hidden in a pen—and even an exploding cigar.

NOTE: The attempt to poison Castro was
the first CIA-Mafia operation that failed, the fungus infected scuba suit was
deep sixed by James Donovan, the lawyer who dived with Castro while negotiating
the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners, and the poison pen was presented to
Rolando Cubella (AMLASH) on the morning of the assassination. But these are not
the attempts to kill Castro that led to what happened at Dealey Plaza – JFK was
not killed by fungus or poisoned, but his brains were shot out by a very well
trained and efficient first class sniper. Forget all of the CIA plans to kill
JFK except those that involved high powered rifles and they will lead you to
those behind the Dealey Plaza Operation.

The Warren Commission, never told
about the CIA’s Castro plots, mostly ducked the question of Oswald’s motives,
other than saying in its final report that he had expressed a “hatred for
American society.”

JFK historians and the nation’s
large army of private assassination researchers are still scrambling to make
sense of the latest batch of tens of thousands of pages of previously secret
CIA and FBI documents that were unsealed last week by the National Archives.
The documents—441 files that had previously been withheld entirely, along with
3,369 other documents that had been previously released only in part—were made
public under terms of a 1992 law that requires the unsealing of all JFK
assassination-related documents by October, the law’s 25-year deadline.

Since the release last week,
researchers do not appear to have identified any single document that could be
labeled a bombshell or that rewrites the history of the assassination in any
significant way.

NOTE: This isn’t true, there are
many bombshells, many from the previously released records, and many from the
most recent document dump batch, and it is quite clear that neither Shenon nor
Sabato have read any of them. Anyone who wants to really know what’s in the
files should talk to John Newman, Bill Simpich, Malcolm Blunt, Jeff Morley,
Russ Baker or myself, all of whom are perusing the recently released records
and finding tons of bombshells.

Many of the documents, which were
made public only online, are duplicates of files that had been released years
earlier. Other documents are totally illegible or refer to CIA and FBI code
names and pseudonyms that even experienced researchers will take months to
decipher. Several documents are written in foreign languages.

NOTE: Yes, it will take months to
decipher, but the message is now clear: JFK was the victim of a covert
intelligence operation and not a deranged lone nut case.

Still, the newly released documents
may offer an intriguing glimpse of what comes next. The National Archives is
required to unseal a final batch of about 3,100 never-before-seen
JFK-assassination files by the October deadline, assuming the move is not
blocked by President Donald Trump. Under the 1992 Kennedy Assassination Records
Collection Act, the president is the only person empowered to stop the release.
(Congressional and other government officials have told us in confidence that at
least two federal agencies—likely the CIA and FBI—are expected to appeal to
Trump to block the unsealing of at least some of the documents. Even after 54
years, some government officials apparently still want to keep secrets about
this seminal event in U.S. history. The CIA and FBI acknowledged earlier this
year they are conducting a final review of the documents, but have been
unwilling to say if they will ask the president to block some from being
released.)

None of the files released last week
undermines the Warren Commission’s finding that Oswald killed Kennedy with
shots fired from his perch on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book
Depository in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza—a conclusion supported by 21st century
forensic analysis—and that there was no credible evidence of a second gunman.

NOTE: What total BS – Oswald wasn’t
even on the sixth floor when the shots were fired, though there was a Third
Class sniper in the “perch” on the sixth floor, one with a white shirt and bald
spot, who used a third class rifle to pump evidence into the car while the
first class sniper blew off JFK’s head. The conclusion reached by 21st
century forensic analysis – such as that offered by former Justice Department
prosecutor John Orr – and the Zapruder film analysis by NPIC proves that JFK
was hit from two directions and the fatal head shot did not originate from the
Sixth Floor “perch.” For more 21st Century analysis of the evidence
see the CAPA Mock Trial in Houston in November.

But the new documents do revive the
question of why the CIA, so skeptical internally of many of the commission’s
other findings by the 1970s, never acknowledged those suspicions to later
government investigators—or to the public.

NOTE: The reason is the CIA would
have been put out of business, especially the covert action business, that was recommended
by the Dootlittle Commission but opposed by former President Truman in the days
after the assassination when he recognized the Dealey Plaza MO as that of a
covert intelligence operation. When the facts about the CIA Mafia Castro plots
were revealed, it lead to the Pike-Church and HSCA investigations that also
almost put the CIA out of business.

Documents released decades ago show
that CIA and FBI officials repeatedly misled—and often lied outright—to Chief
Justice Warren and his commission, probably to hide evidence of the agencies’
bungling in their surveillance of Oswald before the president’s murder. The CIA
appears also to have been determined to block the commission from stumbling on
to evidence that might reveal the agency’s assassination plots against Castro
and other foreign leaders.

In 2013, the CIA’s in-house
historian concluded that the spy agency had conducted a “benign cover-up”
during the Warren Commission’s investigation in 1963 and 1964 in hopes of
keeping the commission focused on “what the Agency believed was the ‘best
truth’ — that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted
alone in killing John Kennedy.”

Labeled “SECRET” and stamped
“REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED” on each page, this 1975 memo lists several important
clues about Oswald that went unexplored in the months and years after Kennedy’s
death. (Click to open full document)

But what if the “best truth” was
wrong? According to documents made public last week, the CIA was alarmed by the
mid-1970s to realize that no one had properly followed up on clues about an
especially mysterious chapter in Oswald’s life—a six-day, apparently
self-financed trip to Mexico City beginning in late September 1963, two months
before the assassination.

NOTE: Yes, let’s look closely at
that trip – that began in New Orleans when Ruth Paine picked up Marina and the
rifle and took them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico City to get a visa to
Cuba, used the alias O.H. Lee, attended a Twist Party with two other Americans
at Syliva Duran’s house and then visited Sylvia Odio with two Cubans. What was
going on in Washington DC at the same time is just as interesting, as the CIA’s
Desmond Fitzgerald was briefing the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the CIA’s adaption
of the German miltiary’s plot to kill Hitler to be used against Castro. Let’s
look at these things a lot more closely, but Shenon and Sabato won’t.

The reason for the trip has never
been determined with certainty, although he told his wife, Marina, that he went
there to obtain a visa that would allow him to defect to Cuba, much as he had
once attempted to defect to the Soviet Union.

NOTE: He told his wife Marina and
Ruth Paine he was going to Philadelphia to look for a job, and he had four
Philadelphia address in his note book.

The CIA acknowledged long ago that
the agency’s Mexico City station had Oswald under surveillance during the trip,
and that he met there with Cuban and Soviet diplomats and spies. The CIA
station chief said later he was convinced that Oswald had a brief sexual
relationship with a Mexican woman who worked in the Cuban consulate.

NOTE: Yes, Sylvia Duran had a Twist
Party, and was arrested twice and admitted to the sexual fling with Oswald only
under torture, as indicated by the newly released records that Shenon and
Sabato have not read.

Although there is no credible
evidence of Soviet involvement in the assassination, Oswald’s other contacts in
Mexico included—shockingly enough—a KGB assassinations expert who doubled as an
accredited Soviet diplomat. A top-secret June 1964 FBI report, made public in
the 1990s but apparently never seen by key investigators for the Warren
Commission, suggests that Oswald was overheard threatening to kill Kennedy
during his visits to the Cuban diplomatic compound in Mexico.

NOTE: Check out Khruschev’s take on
the assassination as revealed in the new batch of records:

The files released last week also
show that the CIA and other agencies failed to pursue clues that Oswald, who
publicly championed Castro’s revolution even while serving in the Marine Corps,
had been in contact with Cuban diplomats years before the Mexico trip—possibly
as early as 1959, when he was deployed to a military base in Southern
California. The information initially came to the FBI and the Warren Commission
from a fellow Marine who recalled how Oswald boasted about his contacts with
Cuban diplomats in Los Angeles, where Castro’s government then had an office.

NOTE: Yes, Jerry Patrick Hemming,
former USMC and COP personality like Oswald, said he met Oswald in Southern
California after Oswald left a Cuban consulate there, and Heming thought Oswald
was then working for ONI. More recently someone has come forward saying Oswald
tried to recruit from the them into ONI at the time. But many of the records of
Oswald’s former USMC buddies have disappeared NARA.

I'm going to have to stop responding here, at least for awhile.

The account from the fellow Marine
was of “a lot more possible operational significance” than was realized in the
months after the assassination but was never “run down or developed by
investigation,” according to a 1975 CIA internal memo released last week. “The
record of the beginning of OSWALD’s relationship with the Cubans starts
with a question mark.”

That 27-page memo, which does not
identify its author, is among the most intriguing of the documents in last
week’s batch unsealed by the National Archives. Copies of the document were
found inside larger CIA files released last week, including thick agency files
labeled HELMS HEARING DUPLICATE. That seems to suggest the memo was given to
former Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms, who led the agency from
1966 to 1973, when he was later summoned to testify secretly to Congress about
his involvement in the CIA assassination plots against Castro and other foreign
leaders. Similar documents about the Kennedy assassination and Oswald were
written in the 1970s by a senior CIA counterintelligence official, Raymond
Rocca, who had served as the agency’s chief liaison to the Warren Commission.

Labeled “SECRET” and stamped
“REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED” on each page, the 1975 memo lists several important
clues about Oswald that went unexplored in the months and years after Kennedy’s
death. (Versions of the same CIA memo were part of the flood of millions of pages
of documents released after the 1992 law, although it has never attracted
detailed attention outside a small circle of assassination researchers. Brian
Latell, a respected former CIA analyst on Cuban intelligence, cited a version
of the document in his 2012 book Castro’s Secrets, which suggested much
closer links between Oswald and Cuba than had previously been known.)

The 1975 document noted the failure
of the CIA, FBI and the Warren Commission to interview a key witness in Mexico
City—Silvia Duran, the Mexican woman who worked in the Cuban consulate and was
reported to have had the affair with Oswald. She is the “sole live witness on
the record regarding Oswald’s activities,” yet her testimony “was taken and
presented, solely, by the Mexican governmental authorities,” the CIA memo said.
Duran, who is still alive, has repeatedly insisted she had no sexual
relationship with Oswald, although she readily acknowledges that she helped him
with his unsuccessful visa application for Cuba.

It was that same CIA memo that
offered a detailed theory of the chain of events that led Oswald to kill
Kennedy—how Oswald, who lived in his hometown of New Orleans for much of 1963,
may have been inspired to assassinate the president if, as seemed probable, he
read an article on Monday, September 9, in the local newspaper, that suggested
Castro was targeted for murder by the United States.

The article, written by a reporter
for The Associated Press in Havana and then published prominently in the Times-Picayune,
was an account of an AP interview with Castro two days earlier, in which the
Cuban strongman angrily warned the Kennedy administration that he was aware of
U.S. assassination plots aimed at Cuban leaders, presumably including him, and
was prepared to retaliate. The article quoted Castro as saying: “U.S. leaders
would be in danger if they helped in any attempt to do away with leaders of Cuba.”

The September 1963 Times Picayune
story. (Click to view full-size image.)

The CIA memo suggested that if
Oswald, who was known to be an “avid reader” of the Times-Picayune, saw
the article, it might have put the idea in his head to kill Kennedy as retaliation
for the threat the United States posed to Castro—an idea that would have been
in his mind as he left for his trip to Mexico that month. The possibility that
Oswald read the article “must be considered of great significance in light of
the pathological evolution of Oswald’s passive/aggressive makeup” and “his
identification with Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution,” the CIA memo said.

Immediately after the assassination,
the CIA’s Mexico City station warned CIA headquarters that the AP article might
contain a vital clue about Oswald’s motives for killing Kennedy—and even about
possible Cuban involvement. But according to the 1975 analysis, “There is no
evidence in the files on the Kennedy assassination that the Castro interview
was considered in following up leads or in dealing with the Warren Commission,
although Mexico Station specifically directed headquarters to the AP story very
shortly after the Dallas killing.”

Previously released internal
documents from the Warren Commission show that one of the commission’s most
aggressive staff lawyers believed that Castro’s remarks to the AP—and the
possibility that Oswald read the article—might be of great significance in
explaining Oswald’s motives. But the internal files show that more senior staff
members decided against any reference to the AP article in the commission’s
final report for fear of feeding conspiracy theories about a possible Cuban
link to Kennedy’s death. It does not reflect well on the legacy of either the
CIA or the commission that, half a century after those gunshots rang out in
Dealey Plaza, the newly released documents suggest that at least some of those
conspiracy theories might be true.